Cloned Websites and Shady Operators — Beware Hotel Booking Scams

Photo by Ph B on Unsplash

So, I needed to book a hotel in London. In fact, I intended to book a hotel I had stayed at several times before (Unfortunately, they changed their policies in a way that, combined with something they did handling this, that I won’t stay there again).

I went to the hotel’s booking site, booked my stay, then got the confirmation.

The date was wrong.

And the confirmation came from what I, at the time, thought was their e-commerce people. I called and I was told I absolutely could not either cancel or change the reservation.

I told them I was not going to be using that date, and that I was not paying for a room I was not using. We were booking months out.

Turned out?

I’d been got.

I had been scammed.

I’m not proud of this, but I’m admitting it here because what got me was a very common hotel booking scam. It ended up with BBB complaints, assorted nastiness, the hotel trying to get me to send them a photocopy of my credit card via email (a complete no no, by the way, never do this), and a credit card dispute that was ultimately resolved in my favor. I then booked a room with a different hotel.